Olli Mustikainen

Innovative Finnish designer Olli Mustikainen describes his approach to furniture design as "Scandi with a twist."

Arguably not a new idea in a region that gave the world the flat-pack, Finnish designer Olli Mustikainen is eager to give the proven concept a well-needed upgrade. His Nappi sofa table, exhibited at Milan’s Salone Satellite 2014, is a prime example of the next generation in self-assembly, where quality materials merge with a considerably simplified human effort. “I wanted to create a table which can be assembled and disassembled without tools,” says Mustikainen. The designer, who is set to receive his degree in industrial design at the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences later this year, ascribes his clever “Scandi with a twist” style to the adolescent building of wooden huts in the forests around Lappeenranta, his hometown. Through always exploring how to best utilize the properties of raw materials, Mustikainen is working on a product line for a domestic industrial company, as well as lending his services in 3-D modeling and prototype-making out of his Helsinki-based studio.